Experiences Whats making you angry today? Rp pet peeves

[The One Eyed Bandit]

hate it when i gotta post smh tbh

 

[WhiskeyMarten]

hate it when i gotta post smh tbh

I hate typing words on rpnation dot com

 

[Anne Boolean]

I hate typing words on rpnation dot com

i hate the clicking send part

 

[WhiskeyMarten]

I hate having to read over my old posts for information because it makes me cringe 1000 times. My writing goes from decent to agonizing to read as soon as I share it

An Emoji Disintegrating In Pain GIF - An Emoji Disintegrating In Pain - Discover & Share GIFs

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tenor.com

 

[Onmyoji]

I hate having to read over my old posts for information because it makes me cringe 1000 times. My writing goes from decent to agonizing to read as soon as I share it

That's too relatable lol

 

[Melpomene]

To add to part of the conversation, I wish people would be more honest about why they don't write certain groups.

I dislike when someone says they can't write men because... It isn't that hard. You actually can, you just don't want to. That's fine, write what you like. If you don't want to write male characters then no one should force you. But don't sit around claiming you're incapable because... You're not.

What really peeves me is people talk about writing minorities and give the: "well the story doesn't NEED a minority" excuse. As though a story has to specifically be about minority struggles/culture in order for a minority to be able to be apart of it?

No, sorry, you just don't want to write a minority. Which, once again, is fine. I write white people too, I don't hold that against you. But that viewpoint is... Honestly toxic. There's a reason a lot of us POC complain that we want more stories with minority leads that aren't all  about minority suffering.

I guess I just wish people would just say it like it is instead of making excuse after excuse. Because you just saying you like writing a certain way is way better than basically claiming minorities don't deserve to have their stories told unless it is specifically about *insert struggle movement here*.

 

[bad wolf]

saying you “can’t” also gives the impression that you’re afraid of not meeting expectations. and those expectations are so often what other media sources portray them as. it’s the picture you already have in mind. without exploring and without researching and just trying, that picture you have, all those expectations, are more than likely stereotypes. you can’t write men because they’re not manly enough. you can’t write a poc character because they don’t identify with a certain culture or background enough. you’re afraid you won’t write a stereotype and that just… doesn’t make sense to me?

you learn by trying to write those characters differently and respectfully, realistically. why keep yourself in a box, limit what you know and can write? i don't understand it. i’m not perfect. and I know I could do with some improving myself. but i’m always going to try and learn. that’s part of what makes this hobby so fun to me.

even if you tried and failed, you still tried. you don’t have to take every failure personally. accept it. learn from it. and try again.

 

[Inno]

People being too lazy to do some research.

 

[.MAELSTROM.]

What really peeves me is people talk about writing minorities and give the: "well the story doesn't NEED a minority" excuse. As though a story has to specifically be about minority struggles/culture in order for a minority to be able to be apart of it?

No, sorry, you just don't want to write a minority. Which, once again, is fine. I write white people too, I don't hold that against you. But that viewpoint is... Honestly toxic. There's a reason a lot of us POC complain that we want more stories with minority leads that aren't all  about minority suffering.

Some people really go out of their way to avoid having to write POC in any form of the way. I can't tell you how many times I've done a medieval setting - say in a location inspired by a certain real world culture, or place like the Middle East - and had people show up with a bunch of white characters stuffed under their arms. Okay. One or two I can understand. But when literally every single one of your characters is white, including the "people native to the location" in the middle of a desert clearly inspired by Arabia, it's going to have me squinting skeptically at you. It's basic biology for a population indigenous to a location with heat/lots of sun to develop more melanin to protect their skin, so how is your character whose family that's been here for fifteen generations...white?

And if you ask them why everyone is a pasty white girl, they always come up with the weakest excuses. Sis. Come on. You can't use "b-but I don't know how to write their culture" as an excuse. It's a FANTASY setting. Just admit the idea of writing a character with darker skin spooks you.

 

[Cosmo]

Some people really go out of their way to avoid having to write POC in any form of the way. I can't tell you how many times I've done a medieval setting - say in a location inspired by a certain real world culture, or place like the Middle East - and had people show up with a bunch of white characters stuffed under their arms. Okay. One or two I can understand. But when literally every single one of your characters is white, including the "people native to the location" in the middle of a desert clearly inspired by Arabia, it's going to have me squinting skeptically at you. It's basic biology for a population indigenous to a location with heat/lots of sun to develop more melanin to protect their skin, so how is your character whose family that's been here for fifteen generations...white?

And if you ask them why everyone is a pasty white girl, they always come up with the weakest excuses. Sis. Come on. You can't use "b-but I don't know how to write their culture" as an excuse. It's a FANTASY setting. Just admit the idea of writing a character with darker skin spooks you.

Something something came from different lands, something something only married people from their homeland something something started to keep it in the family something something Ptolemy Dynasty.

Yeah, it is silly how far people will go to avoid somethings or what stretches they will go to play a medieval European and damn the distance or logic involved.

 

[nerdy tangents]

.MAELSTROM. oh my god I get that a lot with historical roleplays and I swear to god sometimes I want to throw hands.

It feels like I’m getting gaslit like “no only white people existed outside of slave narratives” and I’m like “that is categorically untrue”.

Like for fuck sake Joanna Lyndsey isn’t a historical scholar and neither was your seventh grade history teacher.

Just cuz you have only seen white people in pop culture or in the extremely short segments your given in elementary school doesn’t mean that it’s “historically inaccurate.” to have diverse people in historical roleplays.

And it’s even more baffling in fantasy historical cuz the whole point is your making shit up. So you have even less of an excuse for not adding in diversity.

** same with LGBTQ characters I promise you gay people existed before it was considered socially acceptable. And their narrative wasn’t necessarily always about oppression and dodging the law. **

 

[Mitheral]

Yeah ... look up the etymology of the word slavic ... then the ethnicity of slavs. Fair skinned, I am afraid. And that was long before the triangle trade. Slavery has hot pretty much every ethnicity there is.

If someone is going to run historical, a little research is in order.

 

[.MAELSTROM.]

Y'all. Don't even get me started on the people who say it's unrealistic to have a single POC in a medieval RP. There could be dragons breathing fire and wizards one shot killing people and shit, but my black paladin in a eurocentric location is breaking immersion. 'They traveled from their homelands in pursuit of knowledge' is no bueno but 'my goddess of death and life who enchants every man she comes across to fall at her feet and sing her praises' is cool.

 

[Mitheral]

POC?

 

[.MAELSTROM.]

 

[Mitheral]

Thanks. Never saw that as an acronym before.

 

[Cosmo]

nerdy tangents One of my favorite homosexual historical figures is Fredrick the Great [Of Prussia]. Granted, he did spend a lot of effort hiding it because of culture, but he is a really interesting figure. Then there was the standard post-'no he totally wasn't gay' spiel because heaven forbid one of the great military minds of the era not be straight.

 

[Mitheral]

I'd go with Alan Turing.

 

[Melpomene]

Some people really go out of their way to avoid having to write POC in any form of the way. I can't tell you how many times I've done a medieval setting - say in a location inspired by a certain real world culture, or place like the Middle East - and had people show up with a bunch of white characters stuffed under their arms. Okay. One or two I can understand. But when literally every single one of your characters is white, including the "people native to the location" in the middle of a desert clearly inspired by Arabia, it's going to have me squinting skeptically at you. It's basic biology for a population indigenous to a location with heat/lots of sun to develop more melanin to protect their skin, so how is your character whose family that's been here for fifteen generations...white?

And if you ask them why everyone is a pasty white girl, they always come up with the weakest excuses. Sis. Come on. You can't use "b-but I don't know how to write their culture" as an excuse. It's a FANTASY setting. Just admit the idea of writing a character with darker skin spooks you.

The funniest part is that these are the same people that will kick up a fuss if you dare try to play a POC in a eurocentric based fantasy world. Like they will start spewing all this stuff about historical accuracy and keeping with aesthetics and the like, but if I am planning a fantasy RP based on ancient India or something of the like, suddenly historical accuracy can be thrown to the wind and the blonde haired, blue-eyed characters should be allowed in this land that is without a doubt dark skinned.

 

[nerdy tangents]

nerdy tangents One of my favorite homosexual historical figures is Fredrick the Great [Of Prussia]. Granted, he did spend a lot of effort hiding it because of culture, but he is a really interesting figure. Then there was the standard post-'no he totally wasn't gay' spiel because heaven forbid one of the great military minds of the era not be straight.

I read a lot of historical m/m romance books and that led me down a rabbit hole for some interesting fun facts. My favorite was this super famous French person who was thought to be among the first transgender people.

And their life was bananas! French spy, they made money fencing in full womens garb, and they like ended up dying at a fairly old age with their bestie.

I mean yeah there were some ups and downs but it was genuinely neat to learn about them. (It was through a podcast so I’m not even gonna attempt to try to spell their name.)

And also there is this really interesting thing in England when being a lesbian was actually much more socially acceptable then being a “sodomite” cuz of how they categorized female friendships and it’s all terrible fun to learn about,

Also don’t get me started on the research I had to do about non-white people in early America and England. It makes me so mad when people try to be armchair historians when a literal Wikipedia search will show you that *gasp* non white people weren’t just slaves and house workers,

 

[.MAELSTROM.]

The funniest part is that these are the same people that will kick up a fuss if you dare try to play a POC in a eurocentric based fantasy world. Like they will start spewing all this stuff about historical accuracy and keeping with aesthetics and the like, but if I am planning a fantasy RP based on ancient India or something of the like, suddenly historical accuracy can be thrown to the wind and the blonde haired, blue-eyed characters should be allowed in this land that is without a doubt dark skinned.

If they're so obsessed with historical accuracy and realism, then their characters should be dying of sun poisoning and turning into giant blisters because they have neither the sunscreen nor the melanin to protect their skin from spontaneously combusting. There's a reason people in those climates have darker skin. But interestingly enough, they ignore all those pesky little realism factors... 👁👁

 

[nerdy tangents]

The funniest part is that these are the same people that will kick up a fuss if you dare try to play a POC in a eurocentric based fantasy world. Like they will start spewing all this stuff about historical accuracy and keeping with aesthetics and the like, but if I am planning a fantasy RP based on ancient India or something of the like, suddenly historical accuracy can be thrown to the wind and the blonde haired, blue-eyed characters should be allowed in this land that is without a doubt dark skinned.

I listen to a lot of romance podcasfs and it is truly banana pants how far we had to get before you could have definitively non-white characters as main love interests.

I mean to be fair not as long as you might suspect but still there are many a historical bodice ripper where it’s a lot of suspiciously light skinned “Arabs”.

I mean it’s a little funny in a book written in 1980 or whatever it’s less amusing when someone in 2022 is trying to make the same excuses.

Also side note :: It’s legit hilarious how many tawny people are in old romance books. Even folks that aren’t supposed to be coded as POC, just random ass British lords who are tawny? Like bitch please I have seen images of British lords. Those guys are at best tan but mostly white pale and pasty.

 

[Melpomene]

If they're so obsessed with historical accuracy and realism, then their characters should be dying of sun poisoning and turning into giant blisters because they have neither the sunscreen nor the melanin to protect their skin from spontaneously combusting. There's a reason people in those climates have darker skin. But interestingly enough, they ignore all those pesky little realism factors... 👁👁

Ok next pet peeve: any "historical accuracy" to excuse shit in a story . And I don't just mean excluding certain races, I mean violence against women, lack of LGBTQ characters, and the like.


Anytime I hear it nowadays I pretty much will start pointing out every historical inaccuracy they have.

Like: "why's her hair just flowing in the wind? Any proper lady would have had it braided up and put on a headdress!"
And: "Where?? Are?? His?? Stockings??"
Or: "Oooh... Drank from the river? Good luck with that dysentery...."

If you are gonna use historical accuracy as an excuse then I am free to unleash my history nerd arsenal

 

[.MAELSTROM.]

If you are gonna use historical accuracy as an excuse then I am free to unleash my history nerd arsenal

"NOOOO you can't have a trans man or a gay couple in historical times!!!! it's not accurate!!11!!"

Literally the entirety of gay ass Roman history and Ancient Egypt with their third gender category:

 

[nerdy tangents]

Ok next pet peeve: any "historical accuracy" to excuse shit in a story . And I don't just mean excluding certain races, I mean violence against women, lack of LGBTQ characters, and the like.


Anytime I hear it nowadays I pretty much will start pointing out every historical inaccuracy they have.

Like: "why's her hair just flowing in the wind? Any proper lady would have had it braided up and put on a headdress!"
And: "Where?? Are?? His?? Stockings??"
Or: "Oooh... Drank from the river? Good luck with that dysentery...."

If you are gonna use historical accuracy as an excuse then I am free to unleash my history nerd arsenal

Okay I legit get mad at the hair and clothes. Like if this bitch has make up and some kind of wavy hair bullshit and “panties” then I am going full Bridgerton in terms of “historical accuracy” and you can shut the fuck up about it.